a history of korea from antiquity to the present

[...]... by any large group on the peninsula in recent centuries Korean is not closely related to any other language Most linguists classify it as related to Japanese and remotely related to the Altaic languages of Inner Asia, which include Mongolian, the Turkic languages, and the Tungusic languages such as Manchu Korean shares a grammatical structure with Japanese and the Altaic languages All are agglutinative,... Manchuria and Northeast Asia, and that after a long period in the peninsula some of their descendents moved into Japan The migration into Japan may have taken place 4,000 years ago Koreans and Japanese share a cluster of genetic markers that is uncommon among other Asians Whatever the origins of Koreans and their relations with their neighbors, in the 2,000 years of Korean history that can be supported... Proto-Altaic, one branch of which evolved into the Tungusic languages and another into Proto-Korean-Japanese, which eventually became the modern Korean and Japanese languages.1 Korean shares many similarities in sentence structure with Japanese, and it is probable that the two languages are genetically related, but linguists differ on whether both languages are related to the Altaic languages A 9 10_450_03_Ch01.indd... agricultural one No part of Korea is far from the seas The seas, however, while filled with abundant fish and seafood, important components in the Korean diet, are not friendly to navigation The east coast on the Sea of Japan (or “East Sea” as the Koreans call it) has few good harbors and is cut off from the major population centers by rugged mountains Navigation on the western Yellow Sea coast is made difficult... trace their ancestries back many generations, in contrast to the Chinese ruling class with its greater social mobility and lesser stability Yet the Korean aristocracy gradually moved from a warrior aristocracy to a civilian one that held military skills in contempt in contrast to the Japanese warrior elite In many ways, such as ritual practices, marital customs, the role of women, the structure of the. .. million, a little larger than that of Britain, France, or Italy, and a little smaller than that of Germany Korea has been a part of an East Asian civilization centered in China China was one of the earliest homes of agriculture, urbanization, state structures, and literacy As long as three and a half millennia ago a culture emerged in northern China that was recognizably Chinese This culture profoundly influenced... saga of the struggles of a smaller society to resist control or assimilation by larger, more aggressive neighbors: the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Inner Asian peoples that border them on the north, the Russians being the successors of the last Missionaries from China and Central Asia introduced Buddhism to Korea For much of its history Korea was a Buddhist land Millions of Koreans are still adherents... agglutinative, that is, one adds components to a root to form words that are often long This linguistic relationship, if accurate, is often interpreted as meaning that the ancient ancestors of modern Koreans came from Central Asia and entered the peninsula through Manchuria, with some of them going on to occupy the Japanese archipelago According to one current theory, the ancestral Koreans spoke Proto-Altaic,... over the centuries It taught that the world was a moral universe, that all humans were connected to the universe and to each other For Koreans it was important in that it made the family, and the roles and responsibilities of each member of the family, the foundation for morality Each individual had the duty to adhere to his or her role as mother, father, son, daughter, elder brother, and so on These... that were not personified as gods and goddesses but accepted as part of nature Nature worship blended with geomancy, the belief imported from China that certain topographical settings are auspicious The location of buildings, the layout of cities and towns, and the placement of graves, as well as architecture and everyday activities, took note of their natural settings While in general the Koreans adhered . Beginnings of a New Regime in the South 314 Toward Division 316 The Republic of Korea 317 The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 320 On the Eve of the Korean War 321 The Korean War 324 The Impact of. may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Seth, Michael J., 1948– A history of Korea. 448 Confrontations and the Policy of Survival 451 Korea in Global Perspective: North Korea s Famine 457 Korea in Global Perspective: North Korea as a Failed State 458 16 Contemporary South Korea, 1997 to